Responsibility
by Beanstalks
Summary: In the desolate remains of Stoneybrook, the BSC cares for orphaned and abandoned children and try to stay alive. Narrated by Stacey, a jaded soldier with nothing left to lose. Extreme! violence, just so you know. Trust me, it only gets worse.
1. Chapter 1

Author's Note: I found my sisters' old BSC books. I can see why we have about 4 BSC books and a bunch of Goosebumps books.

The landscape was barren. A thick haze filled the land. Aside from a few dying trees and patches of brown grass, all of Stoneybrook's western front has completely dead.

Unfortunately, things weren't much better at the eastern front.

Kristy eyed the deer from far away, licking her lips and readying her bow.

_A meal for eight, easy_, she thought.

She heard a _thump _from behind her. Without hesitation she turned around and aimed her bow at...

Claudia.

"Sorry," Claudia said nervously. "How's it going?"

Kristy pointed at the deer, which was galloping away. "Our meal is galloping away, thanks to you."

"Why would you thank me for _that_?"

Kristy sighed.

Dawn was teaching some of the smaller children how to sharpen their blades. She had to stop quite a few times to push her long hair out of her face.

"Remember to cut your hair short," Dawn advised the children. "You could get stuck on a branch or something, and you know you can't get caught in the woods."

"What about to make a trap?" Charlotte Johanssen asked.

"Good point: let your hair grow long, then cut it to use as a noose to strangle anyone who takes our supplies."

"Except how would we tie it?" Haley Braddock muttered sullenly.

Claudia, Kristy and I entered the house. Claudia had some five rabbits and Kristy had a fox around her neck. I was holding a sack of other assorted foods.

"Dinner," Kristy said boisterously, which surprised me.

"Oh, Dawn," I said to Dawn (duh). "Dawn, I found some of those berries you like."

"Good, Stacey," Dawn said as she placed her combat knife on a shelf. "I absolutely _hate _eating all this meat. Can't you guys ever hunt for something _other _than animals?"

"Like what, a wild cucumber?" Mary-Anne said sarcastically. She was cradling a crying infant.

"Stop complaining, Dawn, and help us skin them," Kristy barked. "It's not like we have much of a choice, now, do we?"

The room fell silent, apart from the crying infant.

"I'll help you skin the animals," Dawn said at last.

"Me, too," Claudia said, attempting to make a smile.

Smiles. I can't remember the last time I saw someone smile and really mean it.


	2. Chapter 2

Author's Note: Chapter two, in which the narrator describes basic information about the members of their group in painstaking detail.

Hello, I am Stacey McGill, the treasurer of the Baby-Sitters Clan. I am slender, tall, and have very short blond hair. My eyes are blue and filled with the pain I have witnessed. I am a brutal hunter who is not afraid to get down and dirty. Survival of the fittest, I always say.

But enough about me.

It was late at night and us Clan Elders were having at emergency meeting in an upstairs bedroom. Claudia's room, I think.

This house was very big, presumably in the richer part of Stoneybrook. We chose to stay here because it had a lot of room for any charges we had. It was also atop higher ground, protecting us from flooding and giving us a good view to see any attackers.

Dawn was looking out of the window, watching for any trespassers or prey.

Dawn Schafer had blue eyes and light blond hair. She had cut her hair short since this afternoon, so it was barely an inch off her scalp.

She was wearing a mix of the tattered remains of her old clothes, stitched with animal fur and a breastplate.

Dawn replaced me as treasurer for a brief time (in the Olden Days), when I had lived in New York. She was now in charge of guarding the house when we were gone and teaching the children to hunt and protect themselves.

She had lost contact with her brother, Jeff, since she trekked back to Connecticut. She told us that they were separated during a rough storm, which also took the life of her father and stepmother.

Vice-President Claudia Kishi was Japanese-American, with long, jet-black hair and creamy complexion. She's, like, so amazingly hot that we all have to spend many paragraphs to describe her skin alone.

Of all the other Elders, Claudia changed the least; she is still artistic and wild. She was wearing bracelets from the Olden Days, a diamond earring in one ear and a pearl in the left. She used blood to regularly draw kooky symbols on her face. That day she had a turtle on her right cheek, and little snakes over her forehead. She wore mostly fur.

Claudia isn't all that smart. At first she was just a little dull and insecure, but as time wore on...We feared she had lost a lot of brain cells, even before the bomb exploded.

Claudia used to be raised by her eccentric aunt, Peaches, and her cousin, Lynn. But orcs (what we call a band of savage thieves and murderers) ransacked their home and killed Peaches. While they captured her and Lynn, Claudia managed to escape.

Unlike everybody else, Claudia was slightly chubby, contrasting the thin and bony forms of the undernourished survivors.

The door opened, and Mary-Anne tiptoed in.

"Sorry I'm late," she whispered. "I had to put the baby to sleep."

"Good, now we can start," Kristy said.

Mary-Anne Spier has short brown hair and eyes. She is also short for her age. Mary-Anne speaks with a deep and scratchy voice because she was stabbed in the neck. Boy, that was a clone one!

She wore multiple layers of animal fur. They were noticeably less revealing that the clothes th other members wore. She, like the others, had thick fur-lined combat boots.

Once a shy girl who had trouble standing up for herself, now a tough soldier and quite introverted. She mostly stands in the corner or takes care of the youngest children, preferring not to interact with anyone too much.

From what we pieced together about her, she had a confrontation with her step-mother, Dawn's mom, shortly after the bomb dropped. Shannon and Mary-Anne supposedly got in a fight about cleaning the house; Shannon saw no point, seeing as the land was destroyed. Mary-Anne countered by warning her that large animals would be attracted by the carcases, and they were not yet prepared to deal with them. The fight turned violent, culminating with Shannon shooting Mary-Anne in the arm and foot and Mary-Anne stabbing her in the eye and pushing her out of the second-story window.

At least Tigger is still alive. Her little kitten is still very skittish, but he's coming around. Of course, it doesn't help that some kids chase him around when they get hungry.

Our president, the great Kristy Thomas, has short, shoulder-length brown hair and brown eyes. Like Mary-Anne, she is short for her age. But she used to make up for it by having a loud voice!

She wore a fur coat and clothes. Revealing, but easy to move around in during hunts, battles and recovery missions.

Once she has a bossy, boisterous loud-mouth. It took the massacre of her combined family to humble her. She rarely ever returns to her former self. She came up with the Baby-Sitters Club early in the Olden Days.

She was the last to join up with the clan, having been serving her family and guarding their home before it was attacked and burned down by orcs. She lost her left eye in the ensuing struggle, along with her dog, siblings (including step), mom and step-dad. She often wakes up whimpering or crying.

Her step-sister, Karen Brewer, was burned alive infront of her.

Honestly, no one really minded that.

"Everyone," Kristy whispered, but sounded very authoritative. "Wednesday is tomorrow, tomorrow is Wednesday. You know what that means: we make our bi-weekly rounds to recover any lost children that may have survived."

"How can you tell it's Wednesday tomorrow?" Claudia asked. "There are no clocks or...anything."

"Watch the sky," Mary-Anne advised. We made sure not to look at her, so as not to upset her.

"Oh, like the sun and the moon moving and stuff."

"Exactly," Kristy said simply. "Claudia, Jessi, Mary-Anne and me will head north. Dawn will stay here, and Mallory might join you if we find her. Stacey, you and some of the older little kids and Logan will recover kids and hunt for food in the south. Try to avoid the adult camps."

Dawn said, "Mary-Anne, I know you and Logan don't get along, but we need him. We really, really do."

I gave a quick glance at Mary-Anne, who had an upset look on her face. Dawn had somehow known how she was feeling, despite still glancing out the window.

The meeting was pretty normal, and we did our usual stuff (ration, battle plans, inventory, simple stuff like that) and concluded with Kristy wishing us all the best tomorrow.


End file.
